---
title: "FreeBSD 3.5 Release Notes"
sidenav: download
---

= FreeBSD 3.5 Release Notes

....
                  RELEASE NOTES - FREEBSD 3.5-RELEASE

Welcome to 3.5-RELEASE, a full follow-on to 3.4-RELEASE which was
shipped in December 1999.  In the months since 3.4 was released, many
bug fixes and general enhancements have been made to the system.  Please
see relevant details below.

Any installation failures or crashes should be reported by using the
send-pr command (those preferring a WEB based interface can also see
http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html).

For information about FreeBSD and the layout of the 3.5-RELEASE
directory (especially if you're installing from floppies!), see
ABOUT.TXT.  For installation instructions, see the INSTALL.TXT and
HARDWARE.TXT files.

Table of contents:
------------------
1. What's new since 3.4-RELEASE
   1.1 KERNEL CHANGES
   1.2 SECURITY FIXES
   1.3 USERLAND CHANGES

2. Supported Configurations
   2.1 Disk Controllers
   2.2 Ethernet cards
   2.3 ATM
   2.4 Misc

3. Obtaining FreeBSD
   3.1 FTP/Mail
   3.2 CDROM

4. Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD

5. Reporting problems, making suggestions, submitting code

6. Acknowledgments


1. What's new since 3.4-RELEASE
---------------------------------

1.1. KERNEL CHANGES
-------------------

The loader was substantially updated from -current

Various bugs in the CAM driver fixed.

oltr [Olicom NIC] driver updated.

bktr(4) [Brooktree frame-grabber] driver updated.

isp(4) [Compaq Qlogic] driver updated.

sym(4) [NCR/Symbios SCSI controller] driver updated.

A number of bugs in syscons(4) fixed.

A number of bugs in vinum(4) fixed.

Better support for LBA in wd(4) driver.

Audio mixer(8) support substantially updated.

Support for Microsoft Sound Source (MSS) audio devices.

Support for more Linux system calls in the Linux compatability code.

netgraph(4) updated: new node types and documentation added.

Various bugs in msdosfs code fixed.


1.2. SECURITY CHANGES
---------------------

Many small but meaningful changes, too many to list.  See CVS repository
for more details.  Suffice it to say from a user perspective that
"various things were tightened up."


1.3. USERLAND CHANGES
---------------------

vinum(8) substantially updated.

chmod(1) has gained a -v flag.  See man page for details.

df(1) gains new unit types.  See man page for details.

Various bugs in date(1), ed(1), ln(1), sh(1), camcontrol(8), vinum(8)
and quite a number of other user commands fixed (see CVS for details :).

groff(1), grep(1) texinfo(1) utilities updated.

Quite a few enhancements to /etc from -current merged.

Many doc bugs fixed in man pages.

Thread locking functions added to dynamic linker (see dllockinit(3)).

pthread_cancel(3) function added.

ppp(8) has undergone some changes and bug fixes.  One change in particular
may disturb existing configurations.  The # character is now treated
as a comment start, irrespective of whether it's the first non-blank
character on the line.  Some ISPs allocate authnames with embedded #
characters.  These must now be escaped or quoted.

picobsd support (/usr/src/release/picobsd) substantially updated.

HTTP installation option added to system installer (sysinstall(8)).

XFree86 updated from 3.3.5 to 3.3.6 (XFree86 4.0 not quite ready for
prime-time yet).


2. Supported Configurations
---------------------------
FreeBSD currently runs on a wide variety of ISA, VLB, EISA and PCI bus
based PC's, ranging from 386sx to Pentium class machines (though the
386sx is not recommended).  Support for generic IDE or ESDI drive
configurations, various SCSI controller, network and serial cards is
also provided.

What follows is a list of all peripherals currently known to work with
FreeBSD.  Other configurations may also work, we have simply not as yet
received confirmation of this.


2.1. Disk Controllers
---------------------
WD1003 (any generic MFM/RLL)
WD1007 (any generic IDE/ESDI)
IDE
ATA

Adaptec 1535 ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec 154x series ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec 174x series EISA SCSI controller in standard and enhanced mode.
Adaptec 274X/284X/2920C/294x/2950/3940/3950 (Narrow/Wide/Twin) series
EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI controllers.
Adaptec AIC7850, AIC7860, AIC7880, AIC789x, on-board SCSI controllers.
Adaptec 1510 series ISA SCSI controllers (not for bootable devices)
Adaptec 152x series ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec AIC-6260 and AIC-6360 based boards, which includes the AHA-152x
and SoundBlaster SCSI cards.

AdvanSys SCSI controllers (all models).

BusLogic MultiMaster controllers:

[ Please note that BusLogic/Mylex "Flashpoint" adapters are NOT yet supported ]

BusLogic MultiMaster "W" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-948, BT-958, BT-958D
BusLogic MultiMaster "C" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-946C, BT-956C, BT-956CD, BT-445C, BT-747C, BT-757C, BT-757CD, BT-545C,
    BT-540CF
BusLogic MultiMaster "S" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-445S, BT-747S, BT-747D, BT-757S, BT-757D, BT-545S, BT-542D, BT-742A,
    BT-542B
BusLogic MultiMaster "A" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-742A, BT-542B

AMI FastDisk controllers that are true BusLogic MultiMaster clones are also
supported.

DPT SmartCACHE Plus, SmartCACHE III, SmartRAID III, SmartCACHE IV and
SmartRAID IV SCSI/RAID controllers are supported.  The DPT SmartRAID/CACHE V
is not yet supported.

SymBios (formerly NCR) 53C810, 53C810a, 53C815, 53C820, 53C825a,
53C860, 53C875, 53C875j, 53C885, 53C895 and 53C896 PCI SCSI controllers:
        ASUS SC-200
        Data Technology DTC3130 (all variants)
        Diamond FirePort (all)
        NCR cards (all)
        Symbios cards (all)
        Tekram DC390W, 390U and 390F
        Tyan S1365


QLogic 1020, 1040, 1040B, 1080 and 1240 SCSI Host Adapters.
QLogic 2100 Fibre Channel Adapters (private loop only).

DTC 3290 EISA SCSI controller in 1542 emulation mode.

With all supported SCSI controllers, full support is provided for
SCSI-I & SCSI-II peripherals, including hard disks, optical disks,
tape drives (including DAT and 8mm Exabyte), medium changers, processor
target devices and CDROM drives.  WORM devices that support CDROM commands
are supported for read-only access by the CDROM driver.  WORM/CD-R/CD-RW
writing support is provided by cdrecord, which is in the ports tree.

The following CD-ROM type systems are supported at this time:
(cd)    SCSI interface (also includes ProAudio Spectrum and
        SoundBlaster SCSI)
(matcd) Matsushita/Panasonic (Creative SoundBlaster) proprietary
        interface (562/563 models)
(scd)   Sony proprietary interface (all models)
(wcd)   ATAPI IDE interface

The following drivers were supported under the old SCSI subsystem, but are
NOT YET supported under the new CAM SCSI subsystem:

  NCR5380/NCR53400 ("ProAudio Spectrum") SCSI controller.

  UltraStor 14F, 24F and 34F SCSI controllers.

  Seagate ST01/02 SCSI controllers.

  Future Domain 8xx/950 series SCSI controllers.

  WD7000 SCSI controller.

  [ Note:  There is work-in-progress to port the UltraStor driver to
    the new CAM SCSI framework, but no estimates on when or if it will
    be completed. ]

Unmaintained drivers, they might or might not work for your hardware:

  Floppy tape interface (Colorado/Mountain/Insight)

  (mcd)   Mitsumi proprietary CD-ROM interface (all models)

2.2. Ethernet cards
-------------------

Adaptec Duralink PCI fast Ethernet adapters based on the Adaptec
AIC-6915 fast Ethernet controller chip, including the following:
  ANA-62011 64-bit single port 10/100-BaseTX adapter
  ANA-62022 64-bit dual port 10/100-BaseTX adapter
  ANA-62044 64-bit quad port 10/100-BaseTX adapter
  ANA-69011 32-bit single port 10/100-BaseTX adapter
  ANA-62020 64-bit single port 100-BaseFX adapter

Allied-Telesis AT1700 and RE2000 cards

Alteon Networks PCI gigabit Ethernet NICs based on the Tigon 1 and Tigon 2
chipsets, including the following:
  Alteon AceNIC (Tigon 1 and 2)
  3Com 3c985-SX (Tigon 1 and 2)
  Netgear GA620 (Tigon 2)
  Silicon Graphics Gigabit Ethernet
  DEC/Compaq EtherWORKS 1000
  NEC Gigabit Ethernet

AMD PCnet/PCI (79c970 & 53c974 or 79c974)

SMC Elite 16 WD8013 Ethernet interface, and most other WD8003E,
WD8003EBT, WD8003W, WD8013W, WD8003S, WD8003SBT and WD8013EBT
based clones.  SMC Elite Ultra.  SMC Etherpower II.

RealTek 8129/8139 fast Ethernet NICs including the following:
  Allied Telesyn AT2550
  Allied Telesyn AT2500TX
  Genius GF100TXR (RTL8139)
  NDC Communications NE100TX-E
  OvisLink LEF-8129TX
  OvisLink LEF-8139TX
  Netronix Inc. EA-1210 NetEther 10/100
  KTX-9130TX 10/100 Fast Ethernet
  Accton "Cheetah" EN1027D (MPX 5030/5038; RealTek 8139 clone?)
  SMC EZ Card 10/100 PCI 1211-TX

Lite-On 82c168/82c169 PNIC fast Ethernet NICs including the following:
  LinkSys EtherFast LNE100TX
  NetGear FA310-TX Rev. D1
  Matrox FastNIC 10/100
  Kingston KNE110TX

Macronix 98713, 98713A, 98715, 98715A and 98725 fast Ethernet NICs
  NDC Communications SFA100A (98713A)
  CNet Pro120A (98713 or 98713A)
  CNet Pro120B (98715)
  SVEC PN102TX (98713)

Macronix/Lite-On PNIC II LC82C115 fast Ethernet NICs including the following:
  LinkSys EtherFast LNE100TX Version 2

Winbond W89C840F fast Ethernet NICs including the following:
  Trendware TE100-PCIE

VIA Technologies VT3043 "Rhine I" and VT86C100A "Rhine II" fast Ethernet
NICs including the following:
  Hawking Technologies PN102TX
  D-Link DFE530TX

Silicon Integrated Systems SiS 900 and SiS 7016 PCI fast ethernet NICs.

Sundance Technologies ST201 PCI fast ethernet NICs including
the following:
  D-Link DFE-550TX

SysKonnect SK-984x PCI gigabit Ethernet cards including the following:
  SK-9841 1000baseLX single mode fiber, single port
  SK-9842 1000baseSX multi-mode fiber, single port
  SK-9843 1000baseLX single mode fiber, dual port
  SK-9844 1000baseSX multi-mode fiber, dual port

Texas Instruments ThunderLAN PCI NICs, including the following:
  Compaq Netelligent 10, 10/100, 10/100 Proliant, 10/100 Dual-Port
  Compaq Netelligent 10/100 TX Embedded UTP, 10 T PCI UTP/Coax, 10/100 TX UTP
  Compaq NetFlex 3P, 3P Integrated, 3P w/ BNC
  Olicom OC-2135/2138, OC-2325, OC-2326 10/100 TX UTP
  Racore 8165 10/100-BaseTX
  Racore 8148 10-BaseT/100-BaseTX/100-BaseFX multi-personality

ADMtek Inc. AL981-based PCI fast Ethernet NICs
ADMtek Inc. AN985-based PCI fast Ethernet NICs

ASIX Electronics AX88140A PCI NICs, including the following:
  Alfa Inc. GFC2204
  CNet Pro110B

DEC EtherWORKS III NICs (DE203, DE204, and DE205)
DEC EtherWORKS II NICs (DE200, DE201, DE202, and DE422)
DEC DC21040, DC21041, or DC21140 based NICs (SMC Etherpower 8432T, DE245, etc)
DEC FDDI (DEFPA/DEFEA) NICs

Fujitsu MB86960A/MB86965A

HP PC Lan+ cards (model numbers: 27247B and 27252A).

Intel EtherExpress 16
Intel EtherExpress Pro/10
Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B PCI Fast Ethernet

Isolan AT 4141-0 (16 bit)
Isolink 4110     (8 bit)

Novell NE1000, NE2000, and NE2100 Ethernet interface.

PCI network cards emulating the NE2000: RealTek 8029, NetVin 5000,
Winbond W89C940, Surecom NE-34, VIA VT86C926.

3Com 3C501 cards

3Com 3C503 Etherlink II

3Com 3c505 Etherlink/+

3Com 3C507 Etherlink 16/TP

3Com 3C509, 3C579, 3C589 (PCMCIA), 3C590/592/595/900/905/905B/905C PCI
and EISA (Fast) Etherlink III / (Fast) Etherlink XL

3Com 3c980/3c980B Fast Etherlink XL server adapter

3Com 3cSOHO100-TX OfficeConnect adapter

Toshiba Ethernet cards

Crystal Semiconductor CS89x0-based NICs, including:
  IBM Etherjet ISA

PCMCIA Etherjet cards from IBM and National Semiconductor are also
supported.


2.3 ATM
-------

   o ATM Host Interfaces
        - FORE Systems, Inc. PCA-200E ATM PCI Adapters
        - Efficient Networks, Inc. ENI-155p ATM PCI Adapters

   o ATM Signaling Protocols
        - The ATM Forum UNI 3.1 signaling protocol
        - The ATM Forum UNI 3.0 signaling protocol
        - The ATM Forum ILMI address registration
        - FORE Systems's proprietary SPANS signaling protocol
        - Permanent Virtual Channels (PVCs)

   o IETF "Classical IP and ARP over ATM" model
        - RFC 1483, "Multi-protocol Encapsulation over ATM Adaptation Layer 5"
        - RFC 1577, "Classical IP and ARP over ATM"
        - RFC 1626, "Default IP MTU for use over ATM AAL5"
        - RFC 1755, "ATM Signaling Support for IP over ATM"
        - RFC 2225, "Classical IP and ARP over ATM"
        - RFC 2334, "Server Cache Synchronization Protocol (SCSP)"
        - Internet Draft draft-ietf-ion-scsp-atmarp-00.txt,
                "A Distributed ATMARP Service Using SCSP"

   o ATM Sockets interface

2.4. Misc
---------

AST 4 port serial card using shared IRQ.

ARNET 8 port serial card using shared IRQ.
ARNET (now Digiboard) Sync 570/i high-speed serial.

Boca BB1004 4-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca IOAT66 6-Port serial card (Modems supported)
Boca BB1008 8-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca BB2016 16-Port serial card (Modems supported)

Comtrol Rocketport card.

Cyclades Cyclom-y Serial Board.

STB 4 port card using shared IRQ.

SDL Communications Riscom/8 Serial Board.
SDL Communications RISCom/N2 and N2pci high-speed sync serial boards.

Stallion multi-port serial boards: EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 & 8/64,
ONboard 4/16 and Brumby.

Specialix SI/XIO/SX ISA, EISA and PCI serial expansion cards/modules.

Adlib, SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, ProAudioSpectrum, Gravis UltraSound
and Roland MPU-401 sound cards. (snd driver)

Most ISA audio codecs manufactured by Crystal Semiconductors, OPTi, Creative
Labs, Avance, Yamaha and ENSONIQ. (pcm driver)

Connectix QuickCam
Matrox Meteor Video frame grabber
Creative Labs Video Spigot frame grabber
Cortex1 frame grabber
Hauppauge Wincast/TV boards (PCI)
STB TV PCI
Intel Smart Video Recorder III
Various Frame grabbers based on Brooktree Bt848 / Bt878 chip.

HP4020, HP6020, Philips CDD2000/CDD2660 and Plasmon CD-R drives.

PS/2 mice

Standard PC Joystick

X-10 power controllers

GPIB and Transputer drivers.

Genius and Mustek hand scanners.

Xilinx XC6200 based reconfigurable hardware cards compatible with
the HOT1 from Virtual Computers (www.vcc.com)

Support for Dave Mills experimental Loran-C receiver.

Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA and ISA standard speed
(2Mbps) and turbo speed (6Mbps) wireless network adapters and work-a-likes
(NCR WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11, Cabletron RoamAbout 802.11 DS). Note: the
ISA versions of these adapters are actually PCMCIA cards combined with
an ISA to PCMCIA bridge card, so both kinds of devices work with
the same driver.

FreeBSD currently does NOT support IBM's microchannel (MCA) bus.

3. Obtaining FreeBSD
--------------------

You may obtain FreeBSD in a variety of ways:

3.1. FTP/Mail
-------------

You can ftp FreeBSD and any or all of its optional packages from
`ftp.FreeBSD.org' - the official FreeBSD release site.

For other locations that mirror the FreeBSD software see the file
MIRROR.SITES.  Please ftp the distribution from the site closest (in
networking terms) to you.  Additional mirror sites are always welcome!
Contact freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org for more details if you'd like to
become an official mirror site.

If you do not have access to the Internet and electronic mail is your
only recourse, then you may still fetch the files by sending mail to
`ftpmail@ftpmail.vix.com' - putting the keyword "help" in your message
to get more information on how to fetch files using this mechanism.
Please do note, however, that this will end up sending many *tens of
megabytes* through the mail and should only be employed as an absolute
LAST resort!


3.2. CDROM
----------

FreeBSD 3.5-RELEASE CDs may be ordered on CDROM from:

        Walnut Creek CDROM
        4041 Pike Lane, Suite F
        Concord CA  94520
        1-800-786-9907, +1-925-674-0783, +1-925-674-0821 (FAX)

Or via the Internet from orders@cdrom.com or http://www.cdrom.com.
Their current catalog can be obtained via ftp from:

        ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/cdrom/catalog

Cost per -RELEASE CD is $39.95 or $24.95 with a FreeBSD subscription.
FreeBSD SNAPshot CDs, when available, are $39.95 or $14.95 with a
FreeBSD-SNAP subscription (-RELEASE and -SNAP subscriptions are entirely
separate).  With a subscription, you will automatically receive updates as
they are released.  Your credit card will be billed when each disk is
shipped and you may cancel your subscription at any time without further
obligation.

Shipping (per order not per disc) is $5 in the US, Canada or Mexico
and $9.00 overseas.  They accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American
Express or checks in U.S. Dollars and ship COD within the United
States.  California residents please add 8.25% sales tax.

Should you be dissatisfied for any reason, the CD comes with an
unconditional return policy.


4. Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD
----------------------------------------------

If you're upgrading from a previous release of FreeBSD, most likely
it's 2.2.x or 2.1.x (in some lesser number of cases) and some of the
following issues may affect you, depending of course on your chosen
method of upgrading.  There are two popular ways of upgrading
FreeBSD distributions:

        o Using sources, via /usr/src
        o Using sysinstall's (binary) upgrade option.

In the case of using sources, there are simply two targets you need to
be aware of: The standard ``upgrade'' target, which will upgrade a 2.x
or 3.0 system to 3.5 and the ``world'' target, which will take an
already upgraded system and keep it in sync with whatever changes have
happened since the initial upgrade.

In the case of using the binary upgrade option, the system will go
straight to 3.5/ELF but also populate the /<basepath>/lib/aout
directories for backwards compatibility with older binaries.

In either case, going to ELF will mean that you'll have somewhat
smaller binaries and access to a lot more compiler goodies which have
been already been ported to other ELF environments (our older and
somewhat crufty a.out format being largely unsupported by most other
software projects).  Those who wish to retain access to the older
a.out dynamic executables should be sure and install the compat22
distribution. Notice that the a.out libraries won't be accessible
until the system is rebooted, which may cause trouble with certain
a.out packages.

Also, do not use install disks or sysinstall from previous versions,
as version 3.1 introduced a new bootstrapping procedure, requiring
new boot blocks to be installed (because of elf kernels), and version
3.2 has further modifications to the bootstrapping procedure.

[ other important upgrading notes should go here]


5. Reporting problems, making suggestions, submitting code.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Your suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are always
valued - please do not hesitate to report any problems you may find
(preferably with a fix attached, if you can!).

The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine with
Internet mail connectivity is to use the send-pr command or use the CGI
script at http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html.  Bug reports
will be dutifully filed by our faithful bugfiler program and you can
be sure that we'll do our best to respond to all reported bugs as soon
as possible.  Bugs filed in this way are also visible on our WEB site
in the support section and are therefore valuable both as bug reports
and as "signposts" for other users concerning potential problems to
watch out for.

If, for some reason, you are unable to use the send-pr command to
submit a bug report, you can try to send it to:

                freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org

Note that send-pr itself is a shell script that should be easy to move
even onto a totally different system.  We much prefer if you could use
this interface, since it make it easier to keep track of the problem
reports.  However, before submitting, please try to make sure whether
the problem might have already been fixed since.


Otherwise, for any questions or tech support issues, please send mail to:

                freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org


Additionally, being a volunteer effort, we are always happy to have
extra hands willing to help - there are already far more desired
enhancements than we'll ever be able to manage by ourselves!  To
contact us on technical matters, or with offers of help, please send
mail to:

                freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org


Please note that these mailing lists can experience *significant*
amounts of traffic and if you have slow or expensive mail access and
are only interested in keeping up with significant FreeBSD events, you
may find it preferable to subscribe instead to:

                freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.org


All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone wishing
to do so.  Send mail to MajorDomo@FreeBSD.org and include the keyword
`help' on a line by itself somewhere in the body of the message.  This
will give you more information on joining the various lists, accessing
archives, etc.  There are a number of mailing lists targeted at
special interest groups not mentioned here, so send mail to majordomo
and ask about them!


6. Acknowledgments
-------------------

FreeBSD represents the cumulative work of many dozens, if not
hundreds, of individuals from around the world who have worked very
hard to bring you this release.  For a complete list of FreeBSD
project staffers, please see:

        http://www.FreeBSD.org/handbook/staff.html

or, if you've loaded the doc distribution:

        file:/usr/share/doc/handbook/staff.html


Special mention to:

        The donors listed at http://www.FreeBSD.org/handbook/donors.html

        And to the many thousands of FreeBSD users and testers all over the
        world, without whom this release simply would not have been possible.

We sincerely hope you enjoy this release of FreeBSD!

                        The FreeBSD Project
....

link:../../[Release Home]
